"Welcome back. You look a lot better than you did in the hospital." Mulder brushed past me, his tone cold as he made his way to the desk, avoiding eye contact. "And congratulations for making a personal appearance in the X-Files for the secondtime..."
I sat down in the chair opposite him, tuning out his monotone words that rang past me, thinking only of the pain that was trickling down from my mind to my heart, settling in the pit of my stomach like some kind of acid that was slowly eating away at my focus, my will, my passion. The hospital... Mulder continued to drabble on, re-hashing the aftermath of last week, the inconvenience I had caused the bureau. Although humiliation burned brightly in me, radiating from my cheeks for the world to see, it was neither regret nor embarrassment that was absorbing me at the moment. it was fear, plain and simple.
Cancer. such an ugly word, even thinking it sounded dirty, obscene. Yet it blossomed inside me, grew rapidly in my every move. The hospital had ran some tests, and although the results wouldn't come back for a few days, I knew the truth. I suppose I'd known since the first night I found those droplets of blood on my pillow, since I'd seen the woman in the mirror. I didn't have the heart to tell Mulder, and at the moment I also lacked the desire. He would find out eventually.
The rose petal on his desk caught my eye, its crimson petal dried and wan. I picked it up, playing with its delicate shape in my hand. It remind my of the memorial, the wall of names that had towered over us. It was unreal, haunting, in a way. I thought of the kind notes and words from families, lovers, children. I wondered who would come to my grave sight, whose tears would water the soil under which my decaying body would lie. I sensed Mulder's gaze on me, his sigh tasting of unsaid words that fluttered in the air before dying off.
"All this because...because I didn't get you a desk?" There was genuine wonder, a real question that hinted at compassion- he wanted to understand. Yet I felt neither compassion nor empathy for him, only suppressed rage for all the suffering I had experienced at his hand, directly or not.
"Not everything is about you, Mulder" I said slowly, stuffing away the tears that were threatening to surface as I spoke. "This is my life."
He frowned, mouth opening in retaliation. "Yes, but it's..."
I raised my eyebrows, awaiting his answer. He struggled for a moment, his mind searching for an answer, an explanation. After a moment he had become speechless, and his soft exhalation seemed to close our conversation, placing a bookmark in our encyclopedia of unresolved discussions. He turned back to his paperwork, and I to the withered petal in my lap. Despite the silence, my words still rang heavy in the air, replaying in my mind over and over and over again: "this is my life". It seemed such a simple statement, and yet I wondered if Mulder was thinking the same thing as I, the unsaid response that seemed to hover over us: "isn't it?"
THE END